If a country wants to deploy its power globally, submarines are still a must. They are like secret underwater military bases, which can stay in waters unnoticed, gathering data and performing combat missions. Submarines, of course, have large crews. But not the Boeing Orca – Extra Large Uncrewed Undersea Vehicle (XLUUV), which was recently delivered to the U.S. Navy.
U.S. Navy accepted the testing completion of the Boeing Orca and took delivery of it this month. Boeing describes Orca as the “new class of autonomous submarine that can perform long duration critical missions to achieve undersea maritime dominance in changing environments and contested waters”. Orca, of course, is a name given to this unmanned submarine by the Navy.
Boeing’s Orca Extra Large Uncrewed Undersea Vehicle (XLUUV) was transferred to the U.S Navy. Image credit: Boeing
The work on Orca started a long time ago. In fact, we need to go back to 2021 when Boeing Phantom Works set out to improve upon earlier autonomous underwater vehicle designs. That work eventually led to Echo Voyager – a highly capable unmanned submarine, powered by a hybrid diesel-electric system.
This work, naturally, interests the U.S. Navy quite a bit. In 2017 the Navy awarded 40 million dollar contracts to both Boeing, which had partnered Huntington Ingalls Industries, and Lockheed Martin. Boeing slowly but surely developed the XLUUV, based on their earlier Echo Voyager design. This project brought the consortium a new $43 million contract in 2019 – the ink was put to paper for Boeing to make and deliver four XLUUV vehicles.
And here we are now. The first XLUUV, Orca, was delivered to the Navy. Just like the Echo Voyager, Orca is 16 metres long and features a modular construction. It can be paired with a 10-metre payload module, which has a capacity of 8 tonnes. The modular design of the Orca makes it possible to adapt it to different missions.
“This is the culmination of more than a decade of pioneering work, developing a long-range, fully autonomous undersea vehicle with a large payload capacity that can operate completely independently of a host vehicle,” said Ann Stevens, Boeing Maritime and Intelligence Systems vice president.
Orca is powered by a hybrid diesel/lithium-ion battery system. Orca is fully electric when submerged and then charges its batteries with a diesel generator once it has access to the air. It has a top speed of 8 knots (15 km/h), but normally travels at about 3 knots (5.6 km/h). When it is using its battery intelligently, Orca has endurance for 10,500 km. It can stay in the water for months, performing surveillance, electronic combat, and minesweeping missions.
It is not yet clear when Orca might see serious action. But it is true that the future belongs to unmanned weapons systems and Orca is just a part of that move to remove crews from danger while simultaneously improving capabilities of long-range weapons.
Written by Povilas M.